


But the Sight of the Stars

by kjack89



Series: Star Trek AU [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2014-04-01
Packaged: 2018-01-17 20:00:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1400632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/kjack89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras and Grantaire contemplate the stars and their future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But the Sight of the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a quote from Vincent Van Gogh: “For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.”
> 
> Usual disclaimer.

It was a perfect summer’s night, with a breeze just on this side of cool, and the corn was waving almost teasingly as the two men slipped through the Iowa cornfield, hand in hand. The crickets were chirping and the stars were surprisingly bright, normally blocked out from the light of the nearby airfield.

The two wove through the corn until they reached the gap between the cornfield and the soybean field, and once there, practically collapsed on the ground. “I’m getting too old for this,” one joked, his hand reached up to tangle in the other’s blond curls.

The blond snorted. “You realize that we literally just graduated from school, right? I think you’re a little young to be making the statement that you’re too old for anything.”

“Well look at you, Mister University Graduate,” the dark-haired man sniped, rolling over to kiss him lightly on the lips. “I must beg your pardon, Enjolras. I didn’t realize my hyperbole was so offensive to you and your delicate, realistic mind.”

Rolling his eyes, Enjolras flipped the other man onto his back and kissed him as well. “Grantaire,” he said, sternly, the name at once both a warning and an exasperated statement. “You know what I mean.”

Grantaire raised an eyebrow, but his lips quirked into a genuine smile and he relaxed against Enjolras. “Yes. I know exactly what you mean. It’s like that song that always plays on the classical music station says — ‘Tonight, we are young, so let’s set the world on fire, we can burn brighter than the sun’.”

Enjolras made a face. “Let’s not talk about setting the world on fire, shall we?”

Laughing, Grantaire asked teasingly, “Should I change my mind about you, the man who once declaimed for an hour about how the only way to truly change the world was to set it on fire and start from the beginning?” Enjolras scrunched his nose and Grantaire grinned and reached up to kiss it. “You ridiculous man, you.”

“If I’m ridiculous, then what does that make you?” Enjolras challenged, rolling off of Grantaire lie next to him, their fingers still laced.

Grantaire’s teasing expression softened into something very different, and he squeezed Enjolras’s hand. “At the moment, a man lying against the ground, holding the hand of the man that he loves.”

Though Enjolras smiled, his smile was tight and distant, and didn’t quite reach his eyes. He and Grantaire had started dating — if one could call it that — during college, but neither had ever made it “official”, so to speak. They had never needed to, since they knew where the other stood, and that was the most important thing between the two of them. Now, though, facing an uncertain future, the fact that they had not defined exactly what it was between them hung as an unspoken weight on both of them. Still, instead of addressing that, Enjolras started, “About the ground—”

“Look,” Grantaire said, pretending Enjolras hadn’t just been speaking, “I know we haven’t really talked about, you know, us in the future and what we’re doing here and whatever, but…” He hesitated, glancing over at Enjolras, who pursed his lips but didn’t speak. “I love you. And I’m not expecting you to say it back or whatever, but when it comes to the future, I don’t really care what happens as long as we’re together.”

If anything, this only made Enjolras more uncomfortable, and he shifted against the ground. “Even if by together, you happen to mean light years apart?” he asked lightly, as if he wasn’t suggesting that they would be millions of miles apart.

Grantaire went very still next to Enjolras, his grip on Enjolras’s hand tight. “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice suddenly raspy.

Enjolras was quiet for a long moment before he said softly, “I was thinking of joining Starfleet.”

Grantaire snorted. “Is that all?” he scoffed, relaxing as if Enjolras hadn’t just announced life-changing news. “You can think of it all you want, but I know you. You’re concerned with humanity, and ensuring what’s best for humanity and equality and all that jazz. You can’t be serious about joining an organization dedicated to extending the shitstain that is humanity to other star systems.

When Enjolras did not reply, Grantaire rolled over and propped himself up on his elbow. “Wait, you’re actually serious?”

Shrugging, Enjolras said softly, “Starfleet does a lot of good in this universe. Ignoring some of the inequalities on Earth — which you know damn well I have been tackling year after year — Starfleet has brought a number of advancements, including certain rights and equalities, to civilizations that would have otherwise murdered those who brought such ideas forward. The progress brought forth by Starfleet has immeasurably changed the universe as we know it.” He glanced sideways at Grantaire, whose face was stony, and asked, a little desperately, “Don’t you think?”

“I think humanity is a shit stain on the universe that deserved to be wiped out centuries ago,” Grantaire answered, honestly, and his grip on Enjolras’s hand was painfully tight. “I think that when we interact with the Vulcans or, hell, the Klingons, anyone whose society has advanced beyond even ours, I think it’s a chance for examination of our own society, rather than turning our gaze outwards.”

Enjolras turned to face Grantaire, his eyes dark. “Don’t you ever just look up at the stars and imagine exploring them?”

Grantaire’s expression didn’t change. “Imagine? Certainly, the way our ancestors imagined pushing westward, I’d think. But want to go out and explore them? No, I honestly can’t say that I have. Too much work to be done here, on this Earth, for me to even imagine turning my eyes skyward.”

Enjolras swallowed hard and glanced back up at the glittering stars. “But they’re beautiful,” he whispered, as if that answered the questions that stood starkly between them, the issues that neither would address.

After squeezing his hand again, Grantaire answered softly, “They are. The stars are beautiful, and have always been. But sometimes the most beautiful things are the things that are hardest to reach and to understand.” Though he didn’t look over at Enjolras, his words were stark, and Enjolras could not help but blush. “And sometimes the most beautiful things should stay just that, out of reach and unattainable.”

Inclining his head slightly, Enjolras did not reply, knowing that Grantaire’s words did not require response, knowing that they had reached a partition between them that could not be breeched with their usual banter. Enjolras was headed towards the stars; Grantaire — well, he certainly wasn’t headed in the same direction as Enjolras.

And in the interim, here was what they had, an unusually quiet, warm night in the middle of the cornfields, lying next to each other, both worried what tomorrow would bring but neither willing to admit that to the other, for fear of ruining what the tenuous present had wrought between the two.

* * *

 

Not too long after, Enjolras found himself on a shuttle, bound to a Starfleet ship, one permently anchored to Earth, meant to give Starfleet recruits the feel of what it would be like to be in Starfleet without running the risk of releasing them to the larger atmosphere.

On his left side sat a half-Vulcan recruit named Combeferre, and an overly enthusiastic engineer named Courfeyrac sat next to him. The three had become fast friends, finding that their personalities balanced each other well. Still, Enjolras couldn’t help but feel that a part of him was missing, a part perhaps best exemplified by the empty seat to his right, a seat that maybe should have been filled by Grantaire, were Grantaire inclined to join Starfleet.

But that was a wish that wasn’t meant to pass, and so Enjolras leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes briefly, prepared to face what Starfleet threw at him by himself, with his friends as his only anchor. His eyes snapped open, though, when he heard a far-too-familiar voice practically shouting at the shuttle attendant. “No, I don’t need your help, I know exactly where I’m supposed to be sitting, please tend to someone who isn’t about to throw up on you if you keep talking.”

Enjolras half stood, ready to intercept the man shouldering through towards him, but whatever words of protest he might had supplied died in his throat, replaced with a quiet, “You hate Starfleet.”

Grantaire jerked a shrug, ignoring the attendant next to him, who was still half-heartedly arguing that Grantaire did not belong there. “None of that really matters now.”

Enjolras stared at him, lost for what to do. “But…why?”

“If you thought I was going to let you barrel into the shithole known as space by yourself, you’re out of your goddamn mind,” Grantaire growled, plopping down next to Enjolras, who continued to stare at him, open-mouthed, trying to process what had just happened in the last five minutes. “Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.”

Enjolras just stared at him until he finally found his voice, croaking out, “But Starfleet operates in space. You know that, right?”

Grantaire just smiled grimly and reached out for Enjolras’s hand, lacing their fingers together tightly. “And if you think I’m letting you face that alone, I reiterate, you’re out of your goddamn mind.”

Enjolras’s smile was bright enough to match the flare as the shuttle entered the atmosphere, and Grantaire squeezed his hand and smiled tightly at him. Together, they turned to look out the window as the shuttle left the Earth’s atmosphere, headed for the ships that would carry them into the unknown, together.


End file.
